The Emerging Church Movement

The Emerging Church
Movement: Part 3 of 3

Announcer:The twenty-first
century has
ushered in events and issues that cause us to ask: Where is God in
today's world? In response, Dallas Theological Seminary presents DTS
Dialogue - Issues of God and Culture: The Emerging Church Movement.

A growing number of Christians have joined a movement hopeful of
meeting the complexities of ministering to an emergent culture. Thanks
for joining us as we unpack the key elements of the Emerging Church
movement. Part three.

Mark Bailey:Mark, you're
working in
the area of Christian education. How can we prepare people to address
the emergent culture, whether or not we're involved with the Emerging
Church movement? How do we address the emerging culture?

Mark Heinemann:That's a great
question. I would say one thing is, there needs to be a place where we
take a pretty close look at philosophical categories. Because a lot of
these things, a lot of these discussions, are harking back to this
writer or that writer, this category or that category, and I don't
think our students should be leaving and asking themselves, "Well, what
is a realist?", or, "How did Kant's views affect all this stuff?" We
have to have at least some working tools to go out there and to say,
"What does the church look like in this situation? How can I most
effectively proclaim God's truth?"

Another thing is, and you'd expect this from a Christian educator, but
some of these objections, some of these problems out there are
educational things like Glenn was saying. How we're doing things is
many times the problem. In Scott Smith's book he's talking to Tony
Jones, and Tony Jones says, "You know, it's not so much the philosophy
of such and such, but it's how people are then going out into the
pulpit and misusing it, or going into the church and misapplying it."

So some of these things are methodological kinds of things. For
example, objections to authoritarian leadership. Well, there are ways
even to work in an elder-led church so that you're not leading in an
authoritarian way, or a way that you're damaging people or crushing
their creativity or not appreciating their gifts. There are ways of
teaching. One of the objections that postmoderns seems to have,
emergent church people seem to have, is this very top-down teaching
style, the idea of just unloading knowledge on people, and they're
wanting a more participative thing, more dialoguing, more conversation,
to use their word. And those things don't have to be tied to a
particular philosophy, unless you're talking about a philosophy of
education, where you really believe that God can speak through your
brothers and sisters to teach you things.

At the same time, I don't think we should give up on a legitimate
leadership. One of the things that I struggle with in reading the book Reimagining Spiritual Formation
is, sometimes there seems to be too big
a withdrawal from leading people into the truth and how it applies to
their lives. Those are some things.

Mark Bailey:Either of you two
men want
to chime in there? Glenn, you're in the area of theology, and obviously
in systematic theology we believe that God has spoken and that there is
truth, and there are theological propositions never to be divorced from
real life. How do you approach the classroom knowing that you have a
culture that has affected our students? How do you seek to build that
bridge so that you gain a hearing at the same time you don't lose a
footing?

Glenn Kreider:I think one of
the great
benefits of the whole emergent conversation within Christianity has
been a refocusing on theological method, on what theology is and how
it's done. And it's easy to find in emerging churches an emphasis on
the tradition alongside a rejection of the tradition, so that most
express their appreciation for the creeds and for orthodox Christian
confession, but then reject a large segment of the Christian tradition.
So we're asking questions, and we have to talk about how tradition
actually functions in our theology; and in a confessional institution
like Dallas Seminary, when our doctrinal statement does provide a grid,
a synthesis, a summary of what we believe, how to pass on that faith in
the Christian orthodoxy to our students. It has to be done, and it has
to be done in a way which appreciates the Scripture as the
authoritative source. It's not the tradition or the Scripture, but the
tradition is true to the degree which it matches what the Scripture
teaches.

They also have focused, I think, our attention on the role of culture
and the role of the world in which we live, and to realize that the -
and I'm going to sound like I'm overstating the case, I think - but I
grew up in a Christian community, and I got the sense that the people
who taught me, not at Dallas Seminary, of course, believed that the New
Testament was written to mid-twentieth century America. We read the
Bible as if it directly applies to us, and to realize that the culture
of Moses' day and the culture of David's day and the culture of Paul's
day - in fact, in Paul's case, he's in a multicultural experience - and
to appreciate that the Scriptures were written in other cultures, and
to appreciate that we're speaking truth into cultures today. So finding
ways of articulating the truth in a way which connects with the culture
is incredibly important.

I believe that God revealed himself in Scripture, that Scripture is the
authoritative source; and I also believe, because of Scripture, that
God revealed himself in nature and creation. And as a systematic
theologian, I'm looking for truth wherever it's found, and always
through the lens of Scripture, always the authoritative source as the
authoritative source. But if I can find truth expressed in cultural
perspectives and cultural views, that's a nice way to make a bridge.

Music is a particularly effective way, I think, to do that. It's
effective in two ways. It's effective, as teachers and professors and
as people who are preparing people for ministry, to use the language -
and basically music is the language of the culture today - to use that
to demonstrate their commonality or common ground. But to be able to
communicate in that as well, so it's a both/and with an understanding
of the culture and an expression in the culture, which I find really
effective, and students tend to respond positively.

Mark Bailey:Over a hundred
years,
basically a hundred years ago, the Social Gospel Movement really began
to emerge, if I could say it that way, as an attempt to link
Christianity to the needs of the world at a social, political,
structural level. For evangelicals, and for even evangelical churches
that are a part of the emerging church conversation, what will protect
a church from moving from an evangelical commitment to a Social Gospel,
and ultimately the loss of conviction and witness within society that
has really happened in the old Social Gospel Movement? What protects a
person or a church from that loss?

Mark Heinemann:Just to put my
two
cents in, I think it's maintaining a clear understanding of what the
Gospel is: a doctrine of salvation. I think about our educational
history in Christianity, and some of the most powerful things that have
ever happened in Christian education initially had a heart for the
oppressed and the underprivileged. That whole Sunday School Movement
with Robert Raikes started out that way, but by the end of that story
was written, millions of people had come to Christ because he cared
about some kids who were oppressed in London and had one day off and
were working unbelievable hours and had no education or anything. And
he taught them how to read and how to write. And I don't think we
should ever lose that love for sinners, love for a lost world. That's
what Christ said we're supposed to be all about in the Great
Commission. But we dare not ever, then, move over into another Gospel
and somehow say that that takes the place of that person's trust in
what Christ did for them on the cross, which has an effect now and, of
course, it means heaven for those who trust in it.

Andrew:It seems to me that part of
the
issue here is maintaining a balance. I remember what Grant Howard said,
a little booklet he wrote about his church when they were trying to
redo their vision statement. Basically, they came up with truth in the
context of relationships. That's very biblical; you think God even,
when sending his truth, did it in the context of relationships: sending
Christ to live among us and to be one of us. And you see that
throughout his ministry as well, ministering to the needs of people as
well as giving them the truth. If we can maintain that kind of balance,
so that we can do the things that are being reemphasized in terms of
the personal aspects of this, ministering to real people and real
situations, but not giving up the whole idea of truth in the process;
if you can keep those two together, then I think we'll be in good
shape.

Glenn:I
think it is the case that
reactionary movements are always reactionary. The real danger is that,
in the reaction, there is a moving away from what should be maintained
and held onto. The great tragedy of - and this leads, I think, to a
second answer to the question; that we learn the lessons of history,
and we appreciate the orthodox tradition, the emphasis on the gospel is
exactly right, and on the Trinity. Those are consistent throughout
history. I think the appreciation of our historical faith, once for all
delivered, to use biblical languages, is one way of answering the
question. But a lesson we learn from the Social Gospel Movement is that
it resulted in evangelicalism and what historians have called "the
great reversal," because the Social Gospel defined the gospel as social
activity. Evangelicals tend to move away from doing those kinds of
things that, at one time, were at the forefront: rescue missions and
hospitals and those kinds of things. Started to move away towards
simply a proclamation of the gospel. And it's a both/and, not either/or.

The real danger here, though, it's the caution I would want to provide
- this applies both to proponents of the emergent, and ministry in a
postmodern world, and critics - is be careful about overreacting, about
reactionism. There are some things that my kids help me understand that
could change in us and in the church. But we don't want to throw the
thing out and start over. We have to avoid putting our heels in, saying
we're not going to do this, and avoid polarizing the issue. Because I
think reactionary movements are always reactionary.

Mark Bailey:The consistency of the
identification of who Jesus is as the son of God, the reality of sin,
the necessity of personal salvation, that we don't lose the simplicity
of the gospel which is in Christ and the implications; and obviously,
that's all rooted in a view of Holy Scripture. And I have seen in my
short life of half a century, a little over, that when the Bible is
lost, and when sin and salvation through Christ is no longer important,
that there becomes a loss of witness, a loss of conviction. That can
happen on an individual level; it can happen, obviously, on a corporate
or ecclesiological level.

Thank you for the time.
Thank you for your answers. What I know about these men is their heart
for God and their desire to minister in a contemporary world, and I
appreciate so much your contribution. Let's bow for prayer, shall we?

Father, to thank you for the time with these men, talking about a
subject that is always changing in one sense, the definitions and the
breadth of the conversation in the emergent church, within an
ever-changing culture. And I pray that you would give us that ability
to not speak too quickly before we hear, but also not give up what we
ought never to give up. And I pray that you would allow us your word
and by your Spirit, to not only understand the Scripture, but seek to
know the times, and to therefore know how to bring your truth that you
have revealed to a world that is in such desperate need of knowing your
Son and your plan for all of our lives. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

[music]

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